


What the Heart Wants

by Juxtaposie



Category: Old Kingdom - Nix
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juxtaposie/pseuds/Juxtaposie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is hard, so far west from Belisaere, but unexpected visitors bring Myria hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the Heart Wants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [genarti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/gifts).



Life was hard, so far west from Belisaere. Not a winter had passed that a few lives hadn't been lost to hunger and sickness, and always they struggled to feed themselves. Things were hard all around, Myria knew - she had no disillusions about the decrepit state of the Kingdom – but her nameless little village was so far removed from the main roads and the profitable farm land that the memory of the last traveler to pass through was dim and fuzzy in her mind. Her own daughter had been a no more than babe when the young man had appeared, loping over the low hills one indistinct spring day. He'd brought nothing with him, and he'd left nothing behind but the child growing in the belly of Nel Carr's poor, sweet, simple daughter. The little boy hadn't survived his first winter.

Another funeral today. Another body to cleanse and burn, another soul to send into Death. It was strange to Myria that she had felt such sorrow at the other passings, and could now feel almost nothing. The strongest sensation was that of the rain sliding down her neck, beneath the upturned collar of her oiled leather coat. Kaylin's face looked up at her, beautiful and cold, still in death. Myria leaned over the corpse and pressed a kiss to her only child's face over the baptismal mark on her forehead, smoothing the hair back off her pale brow. Belatedly, she realized she was crying; her chin was dripping tears onto Kaylin's snow-white cheek.

She drew the marks herself, whispered the sounds, watched as the cleansing fire carried her daughter's body beyond the reach of anyone or anything who would misuse it. The entire village was there, three and half dozen people, all faces she knew and loved, all gathered to pray that Kaylin's soul went swiftly beyond the last gate. The sky, dark all day, finally broke open in an anticlimactic drizzle that hissed and evaporated when it reached the Charter-spelled fire.

"Myria," Roan's voice said at her elbow, long after the flames had burned out and the mist had turned what little bit of ash was left into a grey, chalky mess on the stone altar. She turned to find her son-in-law, pale and bleary-eyed, gazing pitifully at all that remained of the girl they'd both loved.

"The babe is fading," he said hoarsely. Like her, he was numb. "Grenna doubts she'll last the night."

And suddenly it was too much. Too much grief, too much loss, too soon, too soon, and there were tears in her eyes and her knees felt weak and she was shaking all over even as she turned away from Roan, ignoring his questioning words, his pleas, turned toward the road that led out of town and began to walk. She wanted out. She wanted to get away, away from this place that had taken her youth and her happiness, her husband and her daughter and soon her granddaughter too. And there was nothing she could do about, no power within the Charter that could stop Death or bring her darlings back – not without terrible consequences.

Her coat flapped around her legs as she marched blindly past the meeting house and the mill, both butted up against the narrow but deep waters of the River Yanyl. The water-wheel groaned as it worked, but Myria paid no more mind to it than she did to the tiny flutter of fear in her stomach when she took her first step across the bridge. It was a shoddy construction of rope and wood, made in haste, as all the previous bridges had been, and just as easily unmade. A deep trench had been dug to divert the water around the village some hundred years ago, providing them with more protection than their old Mage ever could.

The bridge on which she stood was the only way across, and it creaked and groaned beneath her, swaying barely a foot above the swift-moving waters. One hand gripped the rope for balance while the other held her coat closed. Her eyes still stung with tears, but when she stepped onto the opposite bank it seemed like a little bit of the burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She stepped onto the road and kept walking without looking back.

Myria didn't know how long she walked. It had been only mid-morning when they'd performed the funeral rites, but the grey daylight made time strange, and the grief in her heart warped her senses. It felt good, in a strange and frightening way, to be away from her home, and though she'd walked this road many times before (as a girl, with her friends, each daring the other to go on alone) there was a newness to everything. Her eyesight felt keener, her hearing sharper. She stumbled, and nearly fell, over a pothole in the loosely packed dirt road.

_You're grasping at straws, old girl_, she thought to herself with a small, bitter laugh. Her knees hurt. The grass and trees were all stunted, dead or dying. _Go home_. And just as easily as she'd decided to leave, she decided to go back.

She'd only half-turned when she first heard the noise; a dull, rhythmic clatter coming up the road through the mist, the muffled clink of metal on metal. Horses with riders. Myria's stomach dropped into her feet, but as soon as she thought of getting off the road they were upon her, three, no, four riders on tall horses, three young men and one woman, all with swords and – her heart stopped.

Bells. The woman had bells. A necromancer.

"Charter preserve us," she breathed.

"Good afternoon, madam," the foremost horseman called, the one with the close-cut dark hair. "Kindly stay where you are and-"

He cut off when the woman with him gave a huffing sigh and dismounted. Myria's heart was pounding in her chest as the woman approached, her hands at her sides, unthreatening, but how far did she really have to move to draw that sword or free one of the bells? When she spoke, Myria was surprised the words even registered through her terror.

"I am the Abhorsen Sabriel," she was saying. Her accent was strange, and she had a clipped, pronounced way of speaking. She continued, gesturing to the men behind her, "in the company of Prince Touchstone and his sworn swordsmen Osten and Damed." She pulled aside the bangs of her short hair, and it wasn't until that precise moment that Myria realized the young woman – and she was young – was just as nervous as she. The Abhorsen Sabriel, if she was who she claimed to be, was offering her baptismal mark.

All three of the men tensed as Myria reached, with shaking hands, to touch two fingers to the Abhorsen's forehead. The Charter flooded through her, warm and true, and she took what felt like her first breath in minutes. Sabriel's own hands were freezing when she touched Myria's Charter mark.

It was all too much to take in on top of the day's other worries - the Abhorsen, and a Prince, and a sword on every one of them – so Myria focused on what she could change. They were all dirty and travel-stained, with the weary look of those who'd been on the road a long while. They looked hungry, and they were young, each and every one of them – the Abhorsen herself couldn't have been a day over twenty, if that. They were barely grown.

"Supper," Myria said, before Sabriel's fingertips had left her forehead. "You must be hungry, and tired. My village is but a few miles further. We don't have much besides food and warm beds, but we'd be proud to offer them to you."

Sabriel seemed suddenly uncomfortable, and she glanced back at her companions. The curly-haired young man in the red tabard – the prince; he had to be the prince - gave her the slightest shrug of his shoulders and a nod so tiny Myria thought she imagined it.

"Thank you," the Abhorsen finally replied, turning back to her with a smile. "We would greatly appreciate the hospitality."

It took them almost an hour to reach the village, even all mounted. Every one of the men tried to give up his horse to Myria, but Sabriel wouldn't hear of any of them walking, so in the end she gave up her horse and rode with Prince Touchstone. Myria watched them out of the corner of her eye, wondering when they would marry, or even if they had already, but the only time she really looked Damed cleared his throat very pointedly until she put her eyes back on the road.

"I'm sorry," Sabriel said as they came up on the river. She was looking toward the village over Touchstone's shoulder, eyes unfocused. "You had a funeral today."

Myria felt her throat closing up. "Yes, my daughter." She could feel the Abhorsen's eyes on her. "She was about your age."

They left Osten with his horse and promises to bring him something hot to eat on the Yanyl's north bank. Myria's mind raced through all she had in her cupboards, and what she would have to borrow. She toyed briefly with thoughts of Grenna and Roan and the unnamed baby who would soon follow its mother, but then she turned her mind to the Living. She'd had more than her share of the Dead today, and though her heart ached for her doomed granddaughter, she simply couldn't take any more grief. She didn't want to think about it, couldn't bear it, but now that she had the baby in her head she couldn't get it out.

"What brings you out so far from Belisaere, my lord and lady?" she asked, thoughts of her granddaughter, born breathing but silent, circling in her head.

It was the Prince who answered, the first time Myria had heard him speak to anyone but the Abhorsen. "A broken Charter Stone," he said. He wasn't looking at Myria, but at the surrounding buildings, at the curious faces now peering from doorways and windows. Damed, too, was looking around. "We've had some trouble locating it. Every map seems to say something different."

Myria nodded. She knew the place – everyone did – and it was easy to see how they'd missed it. How small the babe had been, how quiet.

"Perhaps we could hire a guide, sire," Damed said quietly.

"The thought had crossed my mind," Touchstone allowed.

"I could take you there," Myria offered as they passed her house and rode on down the street. Hope blossomed in her heart. They turned down a side street. Her son-in-law's house was the last on the left. Sabriel's eyes caught on the building as they swept down the street.

Myria reigned the horse in awkwardly and climbed off the animal with the same disjointed motions. She hadn't been on a horse in years.   
Roan looked up when she pushed open the front door, his daughter cradled in his arms. An unasked question pursed itself on his lips as the three strangers followed her inside, and Grenna stood up from the table where she was waiting silently with a chipped mug of tea clasped between her hands. The Abhorsen drew up short as she entered the tiny room, and her eyes locked on Myria.

"Please," she pleaded. "You can help."

Sabriel was already shaking her head. "I cannot. The will of the Charter-"

"This child deserves life," Myria interrupted, reaching for Sabriel's ice-cold hand. "Please, you must try. I know you can help, my lady. Please! I will give you anything, only save my granddaughter!" She was crying again, desperation and hope filling her heart and head, but the Abhorsen wasn't even looking at her. She was staring at Roan instead, at the baby in his arms, and her eyes began to glaze. The Prince put a hand on her shoulder.

"I make no promises," she said quietly, pulling her hand from Myria's. "If the Charter has made its decision, then there is nothing in my power to undo it. But perhaps it is not too late. I will try."

She stepped up to Roan and reached for the baby. Outside, the rain came down in earnest.

**Author's Note:**

> A mildly successful attempt at world building. Happy Yuletide!


End file.
